Today our daughter-in-love was approved for an immigrant visa. This means she can be a permanent resident of the United States. And, this also means our son and his wife and our two grandchildren, ages 4 and 2, will be moving back to the US soon. The process has taken over a year so we are over-the-top excited for this good news.
Praise the Lord!
Our son, Tim, who lives in Mozambique, managed to arrange a visit to Minnesota after a business meeting he attended in Washington DC. It was a great surprise to learn about this visit. We hadn’t seen him since October of last year.
We had three wonderful days together and nice family time along with our older son, Michael, and his family. We did miss having Tim’s family with us though.
It’s difficult to see your children once a year – and then not all of his family – our daughter-in-love and two grandchildren. Technology helps some these days…we hope our grandchildren recognize us after seeing us on Skype when we see them in person some day…but it’s hard.
So when we took Tim to the airport once again I was sad to say good-bye. After many years you’d think it might get easier, but it does not.
I do cherish the times we have together and hopefully we will get to see the whole family very soon.
Here is a photo our adorable grandchildren who live in Mozambique.
Father’s day has been bittersweet for me since I was a young adult. My father died from an aneurysm when I was twenty – he was way too young. I still miss him and I wish my husband and sons could have met him.
But when I had my own children, Father’s Day became a sweet celebration. It is special to celebrate my husband, who is a good, kind and loving father to our children.
And now, our two sons are fathers and we celebrate them!
Happy Father’s Day!
Sing praises to God and to his name!
Sing loud praises to him who rides the clouds.
His name is the Lord—
rejoice in his presence!
Father to the fatherless, defender of widows—
this is God, whose dwelling is holy. Psalm 68: 4-5
Continuing my series on memorable hikes…
Nerstrand, as we affectionately call the Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park, is one of my favorite local state parks and I think it’s because I go there often. It’s only 20 minutes from our house where we currently live, and we used to drive down to the park from Burnsville where we lived years ago.
There is no date for this memorable hike because I do not remember the year. We have gone on numerous hikes in Nerstrand-Big Woods over the years – too many to count or keep track of: wild flower hikes in the spring, long hikes in the summer, fall leaf hikes in the fall, cross-country skiing in the winter.
But the hike I’m writing about for my Memorable Hike series is when our two boys were young. We drove down to the park from Burnsville for the day. Gary had picked up a couple candy bars (which was, and still is, an infrequent treat) to put in his pocket for our hike. While hiking on one of the longer trails at Nerstrand Gary got the idea to go on ahead and place the candy bars near a tree. He wasn’t that far ahead of us to notice he was missing, and he did it quickly. Then when we were all together again, he mentioned to the boys that he thought there was a candy stand somewhere up ahead. The boys were young enough to get excited about that. We continued hiking and, lo and behold, there were candy bars on the ground under a tree. The boys were thrilled. It was silly but was quite fun, and to this day we talk about finding that candy at Nerstrand.
Who knew?
And then some 700 more carpenters, including a few Amish men, rebuilt a replica of the ark in 2017.
On our way back to Minnesota from the East Coast we decided we were close enough to detour a few miles south to northern Kentucky and check out the Ark Encounter.
A Christian Foundation had the vision to build a replica of Noah’s Ark (without taxpayers money) to show people in this day and age what the ark might have looked liked.
The structure itself is massive… 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet high, an impressive sight to see for sure. These measurements were carefully calculated from information they studied about cubits, a term of measurement used in the Bible.
They researched the Bible and other resources to get an accurate design. Inside the ark there are three levels, with several exhibits on each deck.
They’ve recreated what the cages might look like, a possible watering system for distributing water to all the animals, and there was even an explanation to a plausible way Noah could have discarded animal waste, and so much more.
It was well thought out and very interesting.
We decided it was worth the detour to get a new perspective on an old, old story.
Click here to link to the Ark Encounter website.
While in Pennsylvania, visiting my husband’s family, we often take in a show at the Sight & Sound Theatre in near-by Lancaster.
The founder of Sight & Sound Theatre, Glen Eshelman, grew up on a dairy farm and attended the same country church that my husband attended in his childhood. Glen started painting landscapes when he was a boy and then started taking photographs to paint and then photography became his passion.
This passion prompted Glen to start showing nature slides set to music, to church groups, and this is how Sight & Sound began back in 1964.
Today the theaters (there are two: one in Lancaster PA, and one in Branson MO which opened in 2008) feature full-length Biblical story productions with professional actors and actresses, outstanding costumes, professional musicians, live animals, all performed with realistic time-period backdrops and props on a 300-foot panoramic stage. The performances are so elaborate they continually perform the same show for a year. It is difficult for me to describe the brilliance of these productions.
This year we saw the production Jesus. I love this description from the brochure:
“What you are about to experience is not a history lesson on the most famous person ever to walk the earth. It is not even necessarily a story of Jesus’ life. It’s a story of Jesus’ love, which we believe, is life.”
The production was over-the-top wonderful.
Click on this link to learn more about this incredible theater experience.
I received an invitation to a very special event. It was and adoption celebration but not of the “ordinary kind” that comes to mind. This was an adult adoption.
My friend, who is single and has never had children, befriended a young woman and was a loving mentor to her for several years.
Then the decision was made that my friend would adopt this young woman and they would become a family.
I loved the wording of the invitation and I congratulate Angie – now mother, grandmother and mother-in-law, and Karyssa – a newly adopted daughter, mother and wife.
Continuing my Friday series on memorable hikes…
Our family camping trip out west took us to several national parks in 1992. Each park is unique and so much fun to visit and explore. We are so grateful for those who went before us to preserve such wonderful lands.
NPS Photo
At Mesa Verde National Park we took a hike to see the cliff dwellings, for which the park is known. Mesa Verde is unique because the park preserves the ancient cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloans. When we were there in 1992 the park called the people Anasazi Indians, but when recently looking up information on the park I discovered they no longer use that term, and the correct name is Ancestral Puebloans.
NPS Photo
The website reads the park “offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from AD 600 to 1300. Today the park protects nearly 5,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. These sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States.”
NPS Photo
The website also gives permission to copy photos from their site as long credit is given to the NPS. “They (the photos) may be used for private, public, or press use. Please credit “NPS Photo.”
We went on a ranger led hike through the cliff dwellings. I remember the ranger’s warning that one had to be able to climb ladder steps and fit through small spaces in order to participate in the hike. It was fun to see the cliff dwellings up close and learn about the fascinating life style of the people who had lived there years ago.
Continuing my Friday series on memorable hikes…
In 2003 we went to visit friends who spend their winters in Arizona, away from the Minnesota cold, snow and ice. They bought a lovely town home in Tucson and we enjoy visiting them, over a long weekends, in February, when it works.
There is a lot to do and see in the area where they live: Tuscan Botanical Garden, Saguaro National Park, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, DeGrazia Gallery, Old Tuscon Studios, Mt. Lemon and the Santa Catalina mountains, good restaurants and several places for hiking. Sabino Canyon is one of those places.
Sabino Canyon is a desert oasis in the Coronado National Forest. When you arrive at the park you can take a tram up the canyon and walk back down if you desire. That’s a great way to hike! But there are several trail options available to hike back down. We have hiked in this canyon on several different trips. On this day in Sabino Canyon we were casually hiking down along the canyon in the beautiful, warm, sunshine. There was water in the canyon; water pools in the canyon during winter months and being near water while hiking is a always a treat. As we were walking we caught up with a couple in front of us that had stopped on the trail. They pointed to a rattlesnake coiled up in the sun on a rock along side the trial. We tiptoed past it and kept on going. That’s the first time, and hopefully the last time, I see one of those snakes!
Other than the snakes, the desert landscapes in this park are beautiful and it’s especially nice when one can enjoy warmth and sunshine knowing it’s cold and icy back in Minnesota.
Continuing my Friday series on memorable hikes…
This is about the hike that wasn’t.
Our youngest son, Tim, planned our first trip to Africa. He was living there when my husband, oldest son and myself went to visit. Tim met us at the airport as we stepped off the plane. It was so exciting to be in Africa!
We met the rep from the rental car company and picked up our car. We were soon on the road starting our adventures. The first days were spent at a rustic lodge in Liwonde National Park in Malawi, Africa. We went on an exciting canoe safari and saw hippopotamus’ up close, and in this park we saw elephants in the wild for our first time (but not our last).
After a couple of nights it was time to head to the country of Mozambique to see where our son lived. However, the morning we were to leave we had trouble starting our vehicle at the lodge. After several attempts the car finally started and we drove to the park entrance. We had to turn in our permit to the park ranger and by automatic reflex we turned off the car. This time it wouldn’t start again.
We called the rental company and they said they would send someone right away but of course we were a couple of hours from the city, so we each took out our books and started to read. After a while I decided I wanted to take a walk. My oldest son said he’d go along so we started walking down the road. Immediately the park ranger came running after us and said in broken English…”No! No walk…elephants.” So, of course we had to go back to the car.
Finally two mechanics showed up at the park to fix our car. Thankfully they could do it on the spot and they worked quickly. Soon we were on the road again driving to Mozambique.
Shortly after we arrived home to the USA I noticed an article in the newspaper about a young mom and her baby attacked by an elephant in Kenya, Africa and they died. Of course I immediately thought about our attempted hike in Liwonde National Park. I guess the ranger knew what he was talking about.